Like Fallout For Ranma
by Last Knight Errant
Summary: When he finds himself in a post apocalyptic wasteland populated by strangely familiar people, teenaged martial artist Ranma Saotome must fight to survive, and find his way home... if, indeed, he truly wishes to return home. Not a XOver, despite the title!
1. Chapter 1

Like Fallout For Ranma

** Prologue**

_ Disclaimer: We die our lives. We live our deaths._

Morning in Nerima.

Given enough time, people grow used to even the most outlandish things. Humans, after all, are creatures shaped by their environment, even as they attempt to shape it around them. The miraculous becomes commonplace; the bizarre, mundane. And so, morning in Nerima.

For the past year, it's been the habit of those residents possessed of fortune or fortitude to live in the neighborhood of the Tendo Training Hall (those who have not surrendered to the long, heartbreaking battle with falling property values and rising homeowner insurance rates) to arise early every weekend. This was, in the beginning, not a matter of choice; everyone in a ten block radius was an unwilling audience member to a cinema entitled "Ranma Saotome Must Die." Weekly showing, Saturdays at eight o'clock sharp, matinee Sundays at nine, random repetitions whenever the urge moved the principle actors.

(There was a weekday showing, too, but it was much abbreviated and entailed far less property damage. Only the most devoted of fans paid it any mind, and most of the neighbors were already on their way to work by the time it aired.)

In the beginning, there was chaos and confusion, panicked people fleeing from the sight of incredibly powerful, inhumanly skilled martial artists doing their best to murder each other, accompanied by a chorus of screamed threats and a symphony of splintering lumber, smashing concrete, and shattering glass. Authorities were called, insurance agents gnashed their teeth in despair, and drama abounded.

This, too, passed. Nowadays, the cops didn't respond to very many calls from the Nerima Ward, and when they did, they came in battalions. The neighborhood compensated, and the crime level - barring martial artist incidents - remained low, thanks to the vigilance of the neighborhood watch. Very few people were willing to risk being run through by a crazy long-haired man in samurai armor over a heisted stereo, after all. Insurance companies had thrown up their hands in despair, and refused to issue homeowner's policies to Nerima addresses; but the local construction companies had become so skilled and so in demand that they could repair a sagging house - or throw up an entirely new one - faster than you could blink, and the local economy experienced a commensurate boom. And, best (or worst) of all, more martial artists were attracted by the activity, students of every outlandish school and bizarre style the world had created (and with a little imagination, almost everything could be a weapon), and they traveled to Nerima.

Most of them, of course, wanted to kill Ranma Saotome. But let's face it, the boy - almost a man - usually brought it on himself. On the other hand, quite a few of the challengers, mostly female, wanted to marry him. This, he almost never had anything to do with; but such was his fate.

Today's showing could almost be considered a rerun, the cast that casual bunch locally dubbed "the Wrecking Crew." They weren't the best of the many martial artists who roamed the city - Ryu Kumon, or Pantyhose Tarou, could easily wipe the floor with most of them - but they were, assuredly, the most stubborn. Sometimes they took it upon themselves to wake Ranma up, attempting to achieve by ambush what they'd failed to accomplish honorably. Usually, they waited for someone else to do it first - the father of genius, Genma Saotome, a martial artist whose skill was only matched by his appetite, or his laziness. Or his appetite for laziness.

Genma's watch word was practice. Not for himself, of course; he considered himself the finest martial artist in the world, and as such, in a unique position to teach his son and heir to become the finest martial artist in the world, generally by battling other practitioners and stealing their secrets. He wasn't too far off with this claim; after all, at a startlingly young age he'd created not one but /two/ powerful martial arts styles so powerful a rare bout with honour had forced him to seal them away. But his laziness - or his appetite - far exceeded even his talent, and so he was content to let his skills languish away, spending his days playing shogi (and cheating outrageously), and drinking.

Except, of course, when it came to his son. Constant practice, constant vigilance; everything was training, and the only training worth doing was good training. And as anyone who'd ever done time in the military, on an athletic team, or in the Girl Scouts knew all too well, 'good training' was a euphemism for 'gonna suck.' This was the reason why Ranma hadn't had a complete night's sleep since he was five years old. This was the reason why most of his meals were bolted on the run, fighting like a starving dog to keep them from being stolen.

And in the case of this all too typical scene, the diorama of morning in Nerima, this was the reason why he awoke to find himself flying through the air, headed for the koi pond. The Tendo family koi were an unusual breed, forced by their circumstances to evolve much faster than Mother Nature had intended - evolve, or die. Their pond had been drained, poisoned, and even lit on fire; it had provided a hiding place to stalking martial artists and escaping cooking experiments. Under normal circumstances, even algae would be hard pressed to live in the little pond, but the Tendo koi were hardy, and willing to adapt. Much like the Quantum Butterfly, whose wings create storms to discourage predators, the koi had found their own methods with dealing with the travails life threw at them.

Ranma arrested his fall easily, flipping in midair to land, nimbly, on one of the protruding boulders that made up the banks of the pond. His father followed him out the window, and still yawning the teenager batted away the flurry of punches and kicks. More and more, he was finding himself able to best his father's morning attacks without so much as breaking a sweat; naturally, this was because he was the better martial artist, his skills having so far surpassed his teacher that victories that had once made him strain and sweat to achieve were now the matter of moments. And yet, some suspicious part of Ranma's nature - a facet of the tactical genius that made him so good at what he did - found it interesting that his father would quickly recover from the beating Ranma gave him, and be busy scarfing down breakfast while he, Ranma, was still knocking away the morning sortie of challengers.

He didn't have much time to deal with this, as no sooner had he broken through Genma's guard and kicked him in the chest, launching him into the old oak tree, than the first of the Wrecking Crew made his appearance. Tatewaki Kuno, age 18; once upon a time, he had been a reknowned rising star on the high school kendo circuit, a genius with a wooden blade. It had been widely believed that he would, upon graduation, take his skills to the professional level. That was before Ranma Saotome came to town, and Kuno had chosen to sacrifice everything - his dignity, his fortune, and his sacred honor - on the altar of his obsession. One way or another, he would destroy Ranma Saotome.

Killing Ranma was only a means to an end, however. Kuno's true goal was to win the hearts and affections - or reclaim them, rather, for he believed they were already his - of his two goddesses, the fair Akane Tendo and the mysterious pig tailed redhead. He wasn't sure just what arts the foul Saotome had used to beguile the two, but he knew - somewhere deep in his heart of hearts - that once he'd beaten Ranma, once and for all, they would both rush into his arms. Somehow. Some way. He was well aware that everyone who knew him regarded him as a buffoon; he simply didn't care. After all, nothing mattered so much as beating Ranma and taking back his rightful possessions. _Nothing_.

Kuno hurtled the high wall surrounding the dojo, bokken raised defiantly. Ambush had never been his metier; a samurai fought honorably, charging the enemy with defiance on his lips. That the loyal ninja retainer, Sasuke, chose to soften the target up with a surprise attack just as his master was making his entrance was, of course, sheerest coincidence. The vengeance of heaven was at hand.

Rising from the pond like some kind of water sprite, Sasuke was festooned with strands of kelp - a cunning disguise, though hardly suitable for a freshwater environment. Still, the reed he'd been using to breathe through had gone undetected for his target to venture into his sights. His weapon of choice; slim, sharp daggerlike blades connected to long, spiked chains, flung at his opponent's back even as Ranma turned to meet his new challenger. Without even looking, Ranma caught a handful of them and yanked, hard - turning the devoted ninja into an improvised morning star, and launching him straight at his master. Kuno was sent flying back the way he had came, cursing the fickleness of the fates before his impact with the pavement rendered him unconscious. Sasuke spun, helplessly, until Ranma deigned to release him - launching him, too, over the wall where he found his landing softened by Kuno. Bruised and relieved to be mostly uninjured, he dragged his master home and took the rest of the day off.

The dance continued. Kodachi Kuno, twisted sister to Tatewaki and reigning champion of Martial Arts Rhythmic Gymnastics (by forfeit) before the sport was outlawed for excessive property damage, heralded her arrival with a peal of mad laughter as she dashed along the rooftops. She couldn't help it; whereas some people had uncontrollable body odor, or nervous twitches, Kodachi had insane laughter. She had tried, more than once, to control it; tried to sublimate the urge into other, more productive pursuits. She had tortured three therapists and a life coach for their failure to cure it, using them as guinea pigs in her ongoing experiments with recreational pharmaceuticals and exotic and dangerous botany. Nothing had worked.

So, unable to change her behavior, she had chosen to revel in it. So they called her mad? She would _show_ them all "mad." Nobody cared for her, nobody loved her; except, of course, the handsome and debonaire Ranma Saotome, who was so true and honorable he could not demonstrate his true emotions, thanks to the web that harlot Akane Tendo had him wrapped in. So Kodachi once more ventured forth to claim by force what she could not have willingly, to rescue Ranma from his durance vile of forced engagement and set him free with her love. And if she happened to find that redheaded harpy her brother was so obsessed with, and tie a pretty ribbon around the bitch's slender neck along the way, then so much the better.

Unfortunately, unbeknownst to all present, Challenger Three for the morning had already taken up his position. Like Sasuke before him, Mousse of the Joketsuzoku had taken up his position last night, when darkness shrouded his movements. He had waited, motionless, in the top of the tree, unsleeping, watchful, hardly daring to breathe lest he give away his position - all the while waiting for the perfect moment to strike. To cut down his rival for Shampoo's hand, and finally claim the buxom purple haired Amazon for his bride - to demonstrate, preferably through bloody murder, the depths of his feeling for her.

Chains and blades exploded from his hiding place as the master of Hidden Weapons attacked, heedless of the morning dew that covered his thick lensed glasses and, once again, rendered him blind as a bat. He had spent most of his life blind; he'd learned to compensate, through his amazing sense of hearing, for example. And that high pitched yelp as he swung for the bleachers, that could only be the man he hated above all others on this wretched world of tears and sorrow.

"You sound like a girl, Ranma Saotome!" he taunted, striking again and again at the blurred, dark figure whose desperate gyrations only barely avoided his blows. Ranma's weakness; being called a woman. The fact that, with the addition of a little cold water, the teenager turned into one was just the icing on the cake. "Come back here so I can murder you, coward!" As his prey fled, he followed, exulting in the glory that today - finally - would be the day he rid himself of this thorn in his side, this pothole on his road to eternal bliss with Shampoo. He was, of course, entirely ignorant of the man in the red silk Chinese shirt behind him, doubled over with laughter.

Today was looking up and up, Ranma thought. Less than three minutes in, and his pops, both Kunos, and Mousse were already out of the way. If he could wrap up Ryoga, Shampoo, and Ukyou as easily, then breakfast would still be hot by the time he got there. A long moment passed, during which nothing happened.

"Would you stop playing around?" Akane called from the dining room, irritation marring her pretty voice like an ugly red moss on a slim, pale birch tree. Ranma allowed himself a moment of hope; perhaps Ryoga was still lost, far enough away that he wouldn't be a player in today's festivities. Perhaps Shampoo and Ukyou were too busy with their respective restaurants to make an appearance this morning. Perhaps there were no new challengers, no hitherto unknown fiancees attempting to steal his freedom, or lovestruck princes trying to kidnap Akane to be their bride (it was invariably royalty, he'd noticed, who had that particular masochistic streak - perhaps it was caused by inbreeding). Just maybe he could wrap up his morning training, eat his breakfast slowly (although he'd have to knock his father out first - already, the fat man was scarfing down a second helping, and eyeing the plate Kasumi, kind and sweet house mother to them all, had set aside for the son), and enjoy the rest of his day off without anything silly raising its ugly little head to mar it.

Perhaps.

And then reality reared up and smacked him in the face, reacting to the presence of that ray of hope.

It didn't make much difference that Shampoo (purple haired Amazon warrior) and Ukyou (brown haired transvestite okonomiyaki chef) were trying to hug him, not kill him. It didn't matter much that their attacks, when they came, were directed at each other - and he was merely in the way. The end result, as always, was the same. World War Nerima, and Ranma in the middle. Frantically dodging giant spatula swings and chui strikes, unwilling to strike back - a Real Man, after all, didn't fight women - Ranma counted down the seconds of his grace period. Usually, it was about five. On rare occasions, it got as high as fifteen or thirty. It all depended on just what Akane was doing at the time.

Today, he got to seven before instinct made him duck aside as a glowing hammer swung through the space his head had but recently occupied.

Pleas and explanations were useless. It didn't matter that he hadn't asked for this, or encouraged it in any way. It was pointless to point out that he was the victim here, beset on all sides; Akane simply didn't care. There were women hanging on Ranma, and this was his fault. Or, perhaps more importantly, there was a target rich environment in the offering, and her hammer was hungry.

Besides, she'd finished _her_ breakfast, and there wasn't anything decent on television until that afternoon, at the earliest.

Once Akane got into the mix, the odds of eating breakfast at all - warm or cold - became slim to none. Occasionally she would get so frustrated at her inability to hit anyone that she would storm off to the dojo to smash bricks, or go on a run to let off some steam. More often, she would simply get angrier and angrier, frustration feeding on itself to become rage, that she would finally manage a solid hit on Ranma - one that would catapult him far, far away from all this chaos and confusion, preferably somewhere approximate to a beef bowl cart. Ranma had sworn a sacred oath to himself to never let Akane know that he _let_ her connect on those occasions. It would, after all, crush her.

But the most often conclusion, once Akane had joined the brawl was that...

"How _DARE_ you anger Akane like that? RANMA SAOTOME, PREPARE TO DIE!"

Ranma allowed himself a slight grin, just before a wash of blue light made all three girls decide to find greener pastures someplace with less impending grievous bodily harm. Now the /real/ training could begin.

"Hey, pork chop, what kept ya?"

"Shut the hell up, Ranma!" Ryoga Hibiki, eternally lost boy, entered the fray. "Today's the day I beat the snot out of you, once and for all!" His weapon of choice, the umbrella; three feet long, bamboo with a lead core. He made them himself, taking pleasure in the art of crafting something he hoped would crack his rival's skull open like an overripe melon.

Once upon a time, Ryoga had considered Ranma an unworthy rival for the hand of Akane Tendo. Although he still loved her, he had given up any hope of being her man; he was, after all, a part time pig. A condition that was Ranma's fault, not that he had any hope of getting an apology from the arrogant bastard. Instead, he hoped to simply take the pig tailed boy down a peg. It had happened before, but always his victories were short lived; and, as much as he hated to admit it, they were the result of some trick. A new technique Ranma hadn't seen yet, a magic potion or scrawled sigil that changed the playing field. Inevitably, Ranma would learn the secret to the trick and work out a counter, or find a way to neutralize the advantage. Indeed, in the end Ryoga had to face the realization that all his efforts had only served to make Ranma an even better martial artist.

Which, like Ranma's skillful dodging one step ahead of the umbrella's swings, only served to make Ryoga more pissed off - and more depressed.

His anguish manifested itself in a ball of light, the energy pulse fairly ripping itself free from his hands and lunging for Ranma's heart. With a smirk, Ranma returned fire; pale pink with swirls of red and blue, the manifestation of his arrogance slammed into Ryoga's depression with a shattering crack. The two came together in the midst of the dissipating energies, lashing at each other with fists and feet. Ranma was faster, if only barely; Ryoga was stronger, if only by a hair. The two were evenly matched, long familiarity making each attack and parry second nature, responding to the moves they knew instinctively were coming before they could begin.

"Man, this is ridiculous," Ranma said. "We're getting way too used to each other."

"Oh, shut up. Hey, is that breakfast?" In unspoken accord, the two disengaged, turning towards the dining room. Akane had already left; usually, she would have had strong words for Ranma 'picking on' Ryoga, or at least a word of greeting for the lost boy himself. Today, her disgust with Ranma, or her frustration at being unable to land a blow on him in the middle of the meleee, had gotten the best of her and she hadn't even time for insults. "Where's Akane?" Ryoga was disappointed; for all that there was someone waiting for him back at a certain pig farm near Kyoto, he still looked forward to seeing Akane's pretty face. After all, he told himself, they were friends.

"Maybe she had to poop," Ranma shrugged. He could see a plate set aside for him, and though it was perhaps less than it might have been if Ryoga hadn't appeared - or, better, had taken the beating due him and been rendered unconscious - he was looking forward to it. There was even a brace of grilled fish, his favorite, nestled glistening on top of the bed of rice. Then Ryoga thumped him, and it was almost enough to distract from the waiting feast.

"You are _such_ a pig, Ranma!"

"Who are you calling a pig, you-" Still bickering, they sat down and stuffed their faces, chopsticks flickering like lightning. Genma, although finished with his own breakfast, made an appearance to try to snatch food from the boys - good training, he'd call it, 'greediness' their word. Whatever the term, he managed little more than a few grains of rice, for both teenagers were on their guard and defended their rice bowls fiercely, growling as they scarfed down the meal. They shot to their feet and bowed to Kasumi.

"Thanks for the meal!" They chorused, before shooting sidelong glances at each other and launching back into the fray, barely slipping outside in time to spare the dining room walls further dents and craters. They were still almost evenly matched, but as the fight wore on it became evident that Ranma was gaining an advantage. Ryoga's strength and stamina were that of a giant; but Ranma's wasn't far behind, and the pigtailed martial artist had greater experience. Time and again, it triumphed over Ryoga's raw fervor. Today was no exception.

It almost looked like a lucky punch, a chance swing that broke past Ryoga's guard and crashed into his jaw, but both combatants knew better. They separated, Ryoga rubbing his chin, Ranma shaking his hand to work the blood back into it.

"Alright, next time," Ryoga said begrudgingly. He knew once Ranma had gotten to him once, the other teen could continue to do so; to fight further was only to invite bruises and contusions he would bear gladly for love, but not so well for pride. Ranma, for his part, was happy to get out of his morning exercise without needing a soak to wash away the sweat; and best of all, he hadn't been turned into a girl once all day.

On that thought, he looked up at the sky, expecting a sudden downpour. Such was his luck, after all. And yet, strange though it seemed, the fates were actually with him for once; not a cloud in the sky, no crazy old ladies suddenly appearing in the Tendo's yard with a bucket and dipper, not even mercenary, out for a quick profit Nabiki Tendo with an "accidentally" spilled glass and a hidden camera. It was shaping up to be an absolutely perfect day.

He really should have known better.


	2. Chapter 2

**Chapter One**

_Disclaimer: First there is a mountain, then there is no mountain, then there is._

He awoke to a cold wind thick with a musty stink, like the charnel breath from the mouth of a tomb. His skin was clammy, ripe with a fresh crop of goosebumps; his chest hurt, heart racing as though he had just run one of his pops' training marathons, performing jump kicks with a prisoner's ball and chain strapped to his ankle. He was nowhere he'd ever been before, the broken streets around him deserted, the towering buildings crumbling and jagged edged. Scattered higgledy piggledy around the crater he lay in were heaps of rusting metal it took his mind a long moment to recognize as junked cars, their tires hanging in rotting shreds from tarnished rims, their glass long since vanished into shards and splinters.

_I don't think I'm in Nerima anymore,_ The thought popped into his aching head unbidden, and he slowly sat up. The time before his arrival was a blank, a void lit by flashes of pain and the impression of an unholy terror. Somewhere in that nightmare was the key to how he'd gotten... wherever it was he'd gotten. Something inside of him suspected the core involved Akane's cooking and her mallet, respectively.

But where was he? He gingerly picked himself up, expecting worse aches than the bumps and bruises he felt, relief warring with apprehension that he hadn't broken bones or torn muscles in his travel. Sure, he healed quick; but even his body could only do so much. On the flip side, if he hadn't taken a trip via Akane Express Air, then how had he gotten here?

_And where is here?_ Even with his mind going a mile a minute, he kept wrapping himself up in that single, nagging question, like a dog around a pole. The street could have belonged to any of a number of cities, but he couldn't think of very many that had suffered this kind of devastation and neglect. This place had simply been forgotten, it looked like; but the faded remains of the storefront signs looked like Japanese, and Japan never just abandoned its towns like this. Maybe in some bigger country, like Russia or China or America, people could just move away after an earthquake or flood, but not in Japan. There just wasn't enough room.

He walked over to one of the derelict cars and peered inside, half dreading what he might find. It wasn't what he feared and expected; if there had been a body inside, once, it would have rotted away by now, like the leather upholstery had. The interior was in as bad condition as the exterior; this car had lain like this, forgotten, for an awfully long time. He looked around, counting the heaps of ruin; almost a dozen, on this street alone. They had all lain here an awfully long time.

He felt a tremor inside he barely recognized, so seldom had he felt it; not since he was a little boy, really. He was homesick, thoughts of Kasumi's cooking, or beating on his pops, or arguing with Akane rushing through his mind in a quick jumble. With resolve, he pushed them aside, to pour over later. A man didn't cry, after all. A man, finding himself in a scene out of I Am Legend or 28 Days Later, didn't wish he was safe at home, eating one of Kasumi's casseroles. A man girded up his loins, gritted his teeth, and made his own home out of rubble and pure machismo, even if he had to fight off a horde of zombie cannibals to do so.

Part of him wondered if there was a horde of zombie cannibals roaming the streets of this ruined city, and if so, if any of them were hiding in the shadows, watching him. The rest of him, that sense of driven self worth and ego the size of a blue whale, told him it was time to stop being such a scaredy c-c-c- such a wuss. There were no such thing as zombies.

_Yeah, and two years ago there was no such thing as shapechanging curses, ghost c-c-c-felines, or mountains filled with bird-people._ That traitor voice in the back of his head whispered. Some people might have called it conscience, or common sense. Ranma ignored it as much as he could, sure that whatever he wanted to do was the right course, and in the unforeseeable event that following his ego would get him into some hilarious bit of trouble, then he would be able to find his way out through skill, guts, or sheer awesomeness. As he had so many times before.

He squared his shoulders and brushed dust and crumbs of shattered asphalt off his red silk shirt, fisted his hands, and started off in the most likely looking direction.

SCENE SPLIT SCENE SPLIT SCENE SPLIT SCENE SPLIT —

It was impossible to be lost when you didn't have a destination in mind; after all, if you didn't know where you were going, then what did it matter if you didn't know how to get there? Ranma had to admit, an hour or so later, that the shattered storefronts and ruined cars were starting to look awfully familiar, as though he had passed this way before. Eyeing a certain crater, just the right size to accomodate a certain pigtailed greatest martial artist in the world, he had to admit he had possibly passed this way _several_ times before. He was starting to feel a bit like Ryoga, horrifying as that thought was; like the world was rearranging itself solely to mess with him, turning left into right and back into forth. It was, of course, not his fault; the ruined streets simply looked too much alike, so that the most likely looking path taken each time turned back around, delivering him to the same intersection each time. He'd had to turn back a time or two, as well, unable to scramble or jump over the walls created by fallen buildings, or the canyons of earthquake gashes where whole sections of the street had fallen into the subway and maintenance tunnels that honeycombed the ground underneath most modern cities.

The end result was that the city was a maze, and he was stuck in it. He rubbed the back of his head irritably, feeling the beginnings of a migraine pounding in his temples. Breakfast seemed an awfully long time ago, and he hadn't had anything to drink since he'd woken up - not that he'd trust the water in a place like this, or thought it likely to find a can of barley tea chilling in some long forgotten vending machine. Although... he eyed the ruined stores speculatively, wondering if one of them might happen to be a grocery, and if so, how good the food inside might still be after how many decades this place had been abandoned.

On the flip side, eating centuries old canned Spam and Twinkies might actually be worse than Akane's cooking, not that he was entirely sure how. If he could just find his way out of the city, he could hunt a squirrel or catch some fish - it was, as his pops had pointed out many, many times in the past, good training. Genma was good enough he could sneak up on a deer and break its neck before it could catch his scent, but then his pops preferred to choose targets that were accustomed to humans feeding _them_, and were thus less likely to run if he made a mistake. Having a safety net of sorts was very important to Genma Saotome, and led to them eating a lot of roast pigeon while they were still on the road.

Somehow, the thought didn't quite bring about the same wave of homesickness that Kasumi's spiced carrot cake did.

Well, if the most likely looking roads had all ended up leading him in circles, that left the least likely looking road leading out of the intersection; most of the buildings had crumbled and filled the road with a sea of debris, but a narrow trail wound its way through the splintered concrete and protruding spears of rusted rebar. It was nothing for a martial artist of his skill to pick through, although he found his constitution tested by a heap of blackened skeletons, choking the trail as though someone had carelessly discarded them, and then dropped a building floor over them like a used handkerchief. The bones crumbled to dust as he touched them, leaving a smear of ash and dust across hands already gritty and torn from shifting bricks and cinder blocks out of his way. He rubbed the sweat from his brow and cursed under his breath.

Rubble shifted behind him, and he stiffened at a peculiar clicking sound. The trail hadn't been much wider than his shoulders, and yet his keenly developed senses were suddenly telling him that he was not alone... and that whatever was back there was big. He glanced over his shoulder; nothing but the winding trail, so twisty he couldn't see much more than a few feet. Again, that clicking sound. He looked up at the sky, a pale silver high above, and the cool breeze suddenly felt like ice against goosepimpling flesh.

This was probably the worst place possible to have a fight, especially with the way the Saotome School focused on acrobatics and aerial combat. Ranma turned his attention back to the trail ahead of him, moving quicker now. With greater speed came less caution, less chance to avoid the jagged spikes of rebar, and he winced as his clothes caught again and again. He could see long hours engaged in unmasculine labours ahead, darning his clothes by the light of a campfire, if he couldn't find his way back to the dojo or sucker someone else into doing it for him. He hated sewing.

The trail suddenly opened up, revealing a square - the courtyard to an office building, it looked like, although little was left of the ornamental statuary and fountain that had once graced it. Most of the plaza was taken up by a huge mound of dirt and rubble, a shape strangely familiar. The clicking from behind him, louder this time, and he took advantage of the open space to leap away, stretching his weary legs for the first time in what felt like hours.

He spun in air, seeing his pursuer for the first time. Slung low to the ground, six spindly legs protruding from a blue-black body segmented into three distinct shapes; bullet like head, slender thorax, bulging abdomen. Antennae flicked at the air, sensing disturbances in the air current and turning to follow him, mandibles large enough to cut him in half snapping open and closed like steel snips. He realized, now, why the mound looked so familiar.

It was a giant anthill.

"You have gotta be kidding me," he breathed softly. The GiAnt flicked its antennae at him and came forward, moving terribly fast for something the size of a small horse. Ranma flipped a chunk of concrete into the air with a toe, then spun and kicked it at the monster; the rock bounced off its head with a noise like a basketball hitting a car hood, and didn't look like it had so much as scratched the chitin. He backpedaled quickly as it charged, sidestepping at the last moment and running up its side, the hard shell slick beneath his soft shoes. It screeched to a halt, legs skittering on the plaza brick, and spun around. The antennae twitched madly, trying to seek out where the tasty morsel had gone, and then Ranma seized one in each hand and heaved backwards with all his might, stomping down hard on the head at the same time. With a sick crunch, the antennae tore loose, and the GiAnt twisted in response, its instinctive writhing like that of pain. Ranma was flung loose, easily somersaulting in midair and landing on his feet to rush back in. The GiAnt lunged, and Ranma dropped to his back to slide under the snapping mandibles and kick it in the chin, rocking the enormous head back on the thin, reed like neck. It gave him an idea, and he rolled away before it could smash its body down in an attempt to crush him. He slashed one of its legs with his as he rolled to his feet, the glass cutting kick he'd used to devastating effect on bottles in training proving its worth now as it sliced the leg clean off. The ant tilted towards him, recovering with the help of its other five legs, but too late; he was already airborne again, and moments later had run up its fat abdomen and along its narrow body. The ant tried to twist around, like a dog hunting fleas, but Ranma had wrapped his arms around its neck and begun to wrench.

With a pop and a flood of gore, the head separated from the body. Ranma tossed it aside as the mandibles continued to snap blindly, a satisfied sneer already gracing his handsome features. "How do ya like me now, sucker?" As if in answer, there was a chorus of clicks behind him. Stiffening, he slowly turned and looked over his shoulder.

The problem with ants of course, is that where there's one, there's a million. The other problem is that they communicate by pheromones, among which the most powerful is the scent they release on their death, warning others of their nest, summoning aid. The worst possible place to be, when soaked in an ant's death-stench, is sitting on the very doorstep of their anthill.

As Ranma was.

SCENE BREAK SCENE BREAK SCENE BREAK SCENE BREAK —-

It was hours later, and the sun was westering, clutching at the darkening sky with bloody fingers. Once again, he was lost; he wasn't sure how Ryoga stood that feeling every second of every day, never knowing where he was or how to get to where he wanted to be - if he could even figure out where that might be. Maybe Pig Boy just didn't realize it; you had to be pretty oblivious to get as lost as he did, after all, unable even to make his way to different rooms in the same house without wandering into a closet, or out the front door and down the street.

He had started somewhere near the center of the city, he figured; the ruins had been mostly office buildings, sky scrapers brought low by time and disaster. He was seeing more ruined houses now, so he was probably in the suburbs - although there was still the occasional dilapidated high rise to make him doubt himself. He hadn't seen the GiAnts for a while, though, so that had to be a good sign. It had taken all of his Saotome Secret Technique training to get out of that mess, and it might have been stickier still if the oversized insects could jump.

There were less wrecked cars on the road here; he took that as another sign of suburbia at first, and perhaps that was true enough. After walking a little further, though, he noticed that someone had been hard at work with those ruins; maybe an animal, savaging the mounds to mark its territory, the way bears and boars clawed at trees in the forest, but somehow he doubted it. There was a sense of organization to the marks, someone who had deliberately chiseled their way through the rusty shells to seek out good metal in the interior, savaging the outside to salvage the in. He paused by one overturned truck to look over the damage; he didn't know a lot about the insides of cars, being more concerned with how to avoid them or hitch a ride on their roof when he needed it, but he could tell someone had gone to great care and effort to dismantle parts of the chassis. _So, there must be people around here... somewhere,_ he thought, feeling something like hope for the first time since waking up in a hole in the ground. It wasn't a particularly strong hope; he'd spent far too much of his life being hated, hounded, and hollered at to doubt the truth in the aphorism, "hell is other people." On the other hand, the way he'd felt like the last man alive standing on those deserted city streets, hearing nothing but the howl of the wind all around him, was enough to make him realize that the opposite could just as easily be true, too.

Just because they'd been here before didn't mean they were still around, though, and there was no hope of tracing their footsteps, however old or recent they might be, on the cracked and torn asphalt. He could only keep going, his steps weary, further on the road he'd chosen. With luck, it was the right one.

Luck was with him.

He literally stumbled over the sign, too tired and hungry to pay more than the barest attention to where he placed his feet; it wasn't much of a marker, after all, just a couple lengths of wood lashed together as a stand, with a yellow duck sitting on top. Glancing around, he saw several others nearby, strung out in a loose perimeter. They seemed to be centered on an old supermarket; he could see a light flickering in the shattered bay window, a flashlight beam playing around the inside. He felt hope rising in his chest again and broke into a run, waving his arms. "Hello! Excuse me, I need some help-"

Long training gave him the intuition needed; he hit the ground and rolled, mere instants ahead of the screaming projectile that tore through the after image of his head. Further down the road, it hit one of the wrecked cars and exploded with a loud crack and a shower of brilliant sparks..

"Can't you frigging read?" Someone shouted, voice oddly muffled. The shot and voice had both come from the grocery, and Ranma slowly rose to his feet. A figure hopped out of the shattered window, a lantern of some sort in one massive hand and some sort of gun in the other. Strangely enough, the gun hand was much smaller than the lantern hand; after a moment, he realized the stranger was wearing some sort of heavy mechanical gauntlet. That was hardly the only odd thing about them, of course; they were cloaked head to toe in a heavy cloak, with some sort of weird, alien looking facemask obscuring their features. "This is a Tendo Family claim! Push off!"

"T-Tendo Family...?" Ranma almost squeaked; that was about the last thing he'd have expected to hear. And that voice, muffled though it was by the mask, seemed strangely familiar... "Akane?"

He could feel the force of the stranger's scowl even before he saw it as she let the gun dangle from its strap and reached up to reveal a familiar pretty face. "Who are you?" She snapped. "One of Sheriff Kuno's boys?"

"Sheriff - what? Akane, what the hell is going on here?" He took a step closer to her, his hands raised in a gesture he would hate to have described as pleading. Akane held up her free hand in warning.

"I don't know who the hell you are, buddy, but if you don't get off my claim I am going to give you a beating your grandkids are going to remember - assuming you live long enough to have any." She snapped, sliding her feet along the gravel. Ranma blinked, recognizing one of Akane's kempo stances, and shook his head.

"Have you gone crazy? I don't understand-"

"Okay, I warned you." She tossed the lantern aside and suddenly launched herself at him, spinning into a respectable crescent kick. Tired as he was, dodging Akane wasn't much of a challenge; he slid to the side like water, letting her zoom past in a totally predictable Akane bull rush. Except this Akane had learned some new tricks, and she turned into a spinning backfist the moment he stepped aside, her giant mechanical hand slamming him into the air.

_Holy shit,_ he thought as he flew. _Akane just landed a hit on me._ He rolled with the impact, rising to his feet and skidding to a halt well short of the wreckage she'd aimed him at. She smirked and thumped her bare hand into the mechanical one.

"Hmph, you're better than the sheriff's usual crop, aren't you? I should have known he wouldn't just keep watching his boys get their asses kicked every week but I gotta say, I expected better of him than trying to ambush me in the wild. At the very least, I would have thought he'd want to keep his victory to himself."

"I'm not - I don't even know what you're talking about! Akane, listen to me-"

"Talk to the power fist, buddy." She smirked and charged again, kicking off into the air and leading with a foot this time. Ranma backpedaled frantically, and Akane followed with a series of punches and kicks that came within a hair of taking his head off. He was faster than her - barely. It was more like fighting Ryoga than Akane, especially with that iron glove giving her already formidable punches an impact like a freight train. Its weight didn't seem to slow her down any, either; he felt the wind of its passage ruffle his pigtail as he slid under one of her backhands and rolled away, trying to grab a little more distance.

"Look, I don't fight girls-" he tried to say. She snorted, indelicately, and brought up her gun, holding it easily at waist level. He had a moment to see it more clearly than he really wanted to; it was thick, heavy looking, like it had been constructed out of salvaged drain pipes. It had two barrels, one atop the other, and both looked a mile wide when they were pointed at his had.

"Yeah, okay, you were just walking by and thought you'd take a look at what I salvaged today, huh? If you don't wanna fight, you can always start running. I might not waste a grenade in your back." She pulled the trigger, and as he ducked she let the launcher fall back on its sling and rushed at him again, giant mechanical hand leading the way. Grenade or power fist, it was a hard decision as to which he wanted hitting him least; so he sprang for the sky, hoping he would have an advantage over Bizarro Akane in the air.

"Man, and I thought you were macho and uncute before!"

"_What did you call me?_" Good news, it looked like she had the same temper as the Akane he knew. If he could goad her into doing something foolish... well, he wasn't entirely sure what good that might do, but he'd solved some seemingly insurmountable problems before by getting Akane to lose her cool, and things certainly couldn't get much worse.

Except that Akane seemed pretty well versed in aerial combat, despite the Tendo School - the one he remembered, anyway - being mostly ground based. She jumped after him, kicking and punching just as fiercely. He twisted away from her, and in desperation grabbed her the strap of her grenade launcher and used it as a fulcrum to fling her away. She rolled in air and landed on her feet, smirked, and came at him again.

_Oh my god, she's as pig headed as Ryoga, too! _Ranma despaired as he touched down and leaped again to get away from her charge. The likelihood of finishing this fight without either taking a horrendous beating, or administering one in turn, was rapidly diminishing. "Dammit Akane, can't you just settle down? I don't want to hurt you!"

"You, hurt me?" She was barely breathing hard, though her face had taken on that lovely shade of pink - from anger or exertion, it was difficult to say. "Don't make me laugh, you arrogant jerk!"

"I would think you've got enough to laugh at already, you thick-headed clumsy brick!" _Did I really just say that?_ Ranma wondered. He'd let instinct take over for him; Akane insulted him, he insulted her back. Usually, though, Akane wasn't quite this... formidable.

Actually, he had to admit he kinda liked her better this way.

"That's it, jerk, get ready to die gasping!" Akane snarled, slipping her face mask back on. It was the closest she'd been to still since the fight started, and her cloak had blown back enough for Ranma to get a glimpse of the harness she wore, over top of a pair of faded coveralls that looked kind of like a military jumpsuit - tools dangling here and there from the straps, along with a trio of metal orbs that looked uncomfortably like grenades. She tore one free, the pin remaining behind on her vest, and - not foolish enough to chuck it directly at him, where he could catch it and toss it aside, she slammed it down at her own feet.

The explosion he'd expected wasn't forthcoming; instead, the grenade spun in a circle, spitting out a stream of silvery gray smoke that quickly formed a cloud, hiding Akane from his sight. Ranma backpedaled frantically, expecting her to attack from under cover - Ukyou had used that tactic often enough, camouflaging her moves with clouds of flour. One whiff as the breeze caught the cloud was enough to tell that this was something far worse than flour, though - immediately his sinuses began to stream, his eyes to itch and tear. Gas!

"Goddammit, Akane!" he yelled, or tried to. Thinking quickly, he started punching the cloud - faster and faster, using all the speed of his Chestnut Fist. The wind generated was enough to bore a hole through the cloud, keeping it away from his face enough so that he could breathe, and giving him a clear line of sight to Akane. Even through the mask, he could see her surprise; then she shrugged, and came at him again.

Well, shit. He could disperse the gas, or he could defend himself. Doing both at once was enough to strain even his awesomeness - but he could try. He lashed out with his leg, catching hers as she kicked at him, keeping up his makeshift fan. He could see her eyes widen as she tried to break free of his grip, but she couldn't punch at him without risking slamming her hands into the blur of his, nor could she kick with her leg trapped by his. Ranma mentally patted himself on the back; as long as he kept up his punching, she couldn't break free. Once the gas dispersed, maybe he could talk her down-

From the corner of his eye, he watched her power fist plough towards him, its armored bulk heedless of the whirlwind of his fists. It slammed through his guard and ploughed into his chest, and he felt himself weightless again, rising, soaring through the air -

He slammed into one of the wrecked cars in a shower of metal splinters, sending debris flying every which way as the rusted bulk crumbled under his impact. He gasped for breath, feeling the edges of his vision gray; his chest was a mass of fire, and he knew he'd have her knuckle imprints bruised into him for at least a day, probably longer. Despite himself, he was grinning.

"God... damn..." he panted, sitting up. Even with the distance between them - she had to have hurled him a hundred feet or more - he could see Akane's eyes, behind the goggles, widen in shock. Remembering how she'd been undisputed brawl queen of Furinkan when he first met her, she probably wasn't used to anyone taking so many hits and getting back up. For himself, he wasn't used to Akane, of all people, putting up so much of a challenge. The power fist helped, no doubt - but it wasn't like the battle dogi, or the super soba. It was simply an icing on the delicious beat down cake Akane herself had baked. "Oh brave new world, that has such people in it." It was something Kuno had said once after Akane had kneed his family jewels up somewhere around his sternum, and it seemed appropriate enough here.

"What did you say?" Akane seemed troubled. Ranma stood up, and she seemed downright disturbed. "Haven't you learned your lesson yet? Stay down!"

"Stay down? I'm just getting started." Ranma grinned, holding one hand to his chest. It ached like the school marching band had just used it to practice their goosestep march on, but he'd had worse. He was, after all, the best.

And it was time he showed this evil twin just what that entailed.

She grabbed for her grenade launcher, trying to reload it and fire before he could close the distance between them, but she was already too late. Ranma shot off the car like a rocket, blitzing through the dissipating cloud of tear gas and grabbing the gun before she could crack it open. A hard shove tore the strap free, and Akane cried out as she fell backwards. Ranma tossed the rifle over his shoulder and shot after her again, catching her before she could hit the ground, one arm around her shoulders and the other holding her power fist pinned against her chest.

"Now, are you going to list-" Nope, she wasn't done. Her free arm lashed out, and he jerked his head back to keep her from popping him in the nose. As soon as she had the breathing room she pushed off with her legs, wriggling out of his grasp and dumping herself on the ground. Before she could get to her feet, he grabbed her cloak and yanked her back to him. Rather than resisting, she came with the tug, one leg coming up and dropping in a perfect 180* arc; kicking over her head and down, with enough force to crush his skull if he hadn't released her cloak and gotten both arms up to catch it. "Goddammit, Akane-" She lashed out with her other foot, trying to kick him in the face, ignoring the fact that she would - and did- fall to the ground as soon as he released her leg to dodge it.

"How the hell do you know my name?" She screamed. "Who are you?" She arched her back and jumped to her feet smoothly, arms already up to guard. At some point in the melee, her mask had gotten knocked loose again, and hung around her neck. Her face was sweat stained and red, and her eyes were wide - not afraid, not quite yet, but frustrated and angry for sure. Ranma wondered if he'd ever seen anyone quite so beautiful before.

"I'm Ranma Saotome," he said. Out of habit, he rubbed the back of his head. "Sorry about this."


	3. Chapter 3

**Chapter Two**

Disclaimer: _All that you love will be carried away._

"Let me get this straight," Akane said carefully. They were sitting on the ruin of a parked car, the fragile plastic worn by its decades of exposure to the elements creaking underneath their weight with every movement. "You're from somewhere else, a place where civilization still exists and the world isn't this wasted hellhole. And in that different reality, you're the best martial artist in the world, you live with my family and I, and we've been engaged against our will by our parents. And you have a horde of other people who want to either marry or kill you, or sometimes both at once."

Ranma reviewed her summary and nodded once, firmly. "That's it, you've got it."

"You're insane." Akane's voice was flat. "I don't know if you've hit your head or if you ate something and it's caused hallucinations, but that is probably the biggest pile of crap I've heard since the last time Sheriff Kuno won the brag concert at the town festival." Ranma opened his mouth to protest, and she held up her hand - the one in the massive mechanical gauntlet she referred to as her power fist - to forestall him. "Look, it's not your fault. You probably heard my name in town, they talk about me a lot. And my family, well, the Tendo Clan of Anything Goes Salvage is one of the two top salvage groups in Furinkan Town. The other one, as I'm sure you know since you're trying to pass yourself off as one, is the Saotome Family. You're living a dream, Ranma, or whatever your real name is. And I hope you wake up soon, I do. It's dangerous enough out here without having some fantasy clogging up your head. But I've got work to do, and it's getting late. I didn't want to have to camp out in Nuked Tokyo overnight, but I'm going to have to if I'm going to salvage this."

"Maybe I can help," Ranma offered. "Look, this isn't a dream. I'm telling you, I know you - I've been living with you for over a year. I can tell you anything, your favorite color, what kind of panties you wear-"

Akane flushed, embarrassed or angry he wasn't sure. "That's enough about my underwear, mister, unless you want to talk to the power fist again." He eyed the gauntlet warily; that thing made Akane's already formidable punch into something that would knock Ryoga for a loop. "I don't need an outsider's help, and I'm not splitting my salvage with you. I can handle this myself." She pointed down the road he'd been traveling with the power fist, its servos whining gently as she extended one finger. "Furinkan Town is that way, if you've forgotten. You can get a room at the inn for the night, or camp out in the town square without worrying about mutants. Kuno's boys are good for that, at least, although they might rough you up some if they think you're eyeballing the local girls."

"I wouldn't - I never - I mean, look -" Ranma wasn't entirely sure what he wanted to say; you'd think that an Akane from a different world would be easier to talk to than the one he was used to, wouldn't you? And sitting here on the car, illuminated by a small kerosene lamp, he could see the differences between this Akane and his own; her face was thinner, her body more muscled even than the overpowered gorilla he knew. This was an Akane who had known hunger, known hardship; an Akane who had grown up fighting, not boys on the playground, but men and monsters who wanted to take what was hers. The gleam in her eyes was familiar. It was the same he'd seen in his own, or in Ryoga's or Ukyou's. The steely stare of a warrior. She slid off the hood of the car and tucked her mask up over her face.

"Good luck, Ranma. I'd recommend you think of a better last name, Genma Saotome doesn't take kindly to people trying to trade on his fame."

"But that's my pops!" Ranma protested. Akane threw him a halfhearted wave over her shoulder as she walked back towards the grocery store, taking the lamp with her. "Well, _shit_." He muttered. He wasn't sure how he could convince her he was for real; looking around the deserted street, more ghostly than ever in the moonlight, he had trouble believing in a world that wasn't ruin and wreckage himself. He slid off the car, feeling more alone than ever before - and hungrier, too.

He hadn't gotten more than fifteen feet down the road before he heard a familiar clicking sound, one that sent shivers down his spine. Shadows churned at the end of the street, and here and there the moonlight glinted from steely carapaces. The GiAnts had found him.

"Akane! Akane!" He shouted, sprinting full speed towards the store. He saw her, silhoutted by the lamp, turn towards him - even without seeing her face, he could feel the exasperation she projected, an unspoken "Now what, crazy man?" her stance screamed louder than any words. He jabbed his fingers towards the end of the street. "GiAnts! They're coming!"

"Oh, piss," she muttered. "Ants? You stirred up a nest of terror ants and then you brought it straight to me?" Her next words were louder, needing to shriek to be heard over the rush of thousands of insect legs suddenly rushing along the broken concrete towards them. "You really are an asshole, Ranma!"

"Insults later, running now!" Ranma said, grabbing her arm through the broken window and hauling her bodily along with him. She found her feet quickly and proved that she had a decent turn of speed in her own right, taking off full sprint down the road with her cloak streaming behind her. He had a second to spare to wonder if this Akane jogged every morning, too, and then he had to put his full mind to running. They hadn't made it halfway down the block before more of the GiAnts swarmed from around the corner, and they screeched to a halt before they could pile into them. Akane barely hesitated, smoothly changing course to dart down an alley Ranma had barely noticed; he followed, nervously noticing that narrow as it was, it was still more than wide enough to let the Buggers follow. He stumbled over a pile of rubble Akane had smoothly leaped, caught his balance before he could face plant, and struggled to catch up with her - only to find that she'd smoothly hurdled a chain link fence he could barely see. He didn't have time to stop, and piled straight through the rusted links, jagged edges tearing at the arms he'd raised to protect his face. Behind them, the clicking sounded louder, amplified by the building walls. Ranma spared a glance over his shoulder, judging how much room they had before the first GiAnt would be upon them; when he turned back, Akane was gone.

He screeched to a halt and whipped his head around wildly. There were no turns off the alley; as a matter of fact, at the end he could see disturbing shapes in the darkness, the full moon shining pitilessly down on gleaming chitin and snapping mandibles. Looking up showed only the side of a crumbling apartment building, without so much as a fire escape to offer a way out; he tensed his muscles, wondering if he could leap up the side, perhaps using the window sills to springboard his way to the roof. Something wrapped around one of his ankles, and before he could cry out, he was falling.

He landed flat on his back in something soft, yielding, and noxious. The stench was truly mind numbing, and only the wind being knocked out of him by the impact kept him from letting out a yelp of disgust. It was pitch black all around; there was the sound of metal against stone, and then light flared. He was in a tunnel, the crowded remnant of some old maintenance tunnel. Akane was clinging to a rusted ladder on the wall, having just slid a manhole in place and, once it was secure, lit her lantern.

"Keep quiet," she said softly. "They can feel the vibrations. If we move slowly and carefully, they might not realize we're down here and we can- why are you doing that?"

It took him a moment to realize that she meant his hands, fists clenched and pinky, index, and thumb extended in the 'promise pose'. It had turned into instinctive reaction by this point, he must have adopted the posture as he was falling. He shrugged and grinned, and she shook her head and slid down the ladder. "You look like an idiot. Anyway, I've been in these old tunnels before. There isn't much worth salvaging down here, but every so often you need an exit, and they usually do the trick. There's all kinds of nasty things living down here, though, so we're going to have move quick and quiet."

He stood up and brushed himself off; his shirt and pants, by this point, were probably a total loss. Even Kasumi, brilliant goddess of housework that she was, would be hard pressed to find any salvage for them; stained, torn, rumpled, and soaked with ant gore. Akane suddenly grabbed his shirt front with her power fist and hauled him in close. "You cost me the salvage of a lifetime," she hissed, suddenly furious. The lamp hardly seemed necessary with the blue flames coming off her, and Ranma found his hands automatically back up in their warding posture. "Those oversized insects are going to be swarming that whole part of town for at least a week, probably longer, and it's _all. Your. Fault._" She let him go, and he backpedaled frantically; but she might as well have already forgotten the whole thing, turning away dismissively. "If we go down this way, we should come to an intersection. Most of them have been tagged already, so we'll be able to work out which way to go from there."

"Tagged?" he said carefully, following along behind her.

"Salvagers put up different marks when we explore somewhere. Like road signs. Usually they're to mark claims - like my ducks - but we'll put up warnings about hostile wildlife or Eaters, tips about the terrain, and directions out."

"Eaters?" This was why he'd always blown off school, much to Akane-Back-Home's frustration; what was the point in going when they didn't teach you anything important? Crazy-Akane-of-the-future sighed.

"Look, we don't have time for me to try to infodump every scrap you need to survive the wastelands right now. Just stick close to me, and if you see anything that looks scary then let me handle it, okay?"

"Hey, I ain't scared of nothing!" he protested.

She snorted. "Double negative, that means you are scared of something - or maybe you people from the past just don't talk as pretty as I always assumed, huh?" He didn't have anything witty with which to respond to that, so he shut his mouth and simmered silently. Soon enough, the tunnel - wider in some parts than others, since sections of the roof had collapsed and it was choked with debris - split into intersections. There was random graffiti on the walls; none of it made any sense to Ranma, and had they been home he would have dismissed it as usual city vandalism, but Akane stopped and pored over it as though it were Gospel. Ranma shifted his feet, trying not to let his boredom show; the air down here was warm and moist, making every breath feel like he was suffocating in a wet blanket, and the sooner they got out of here the happier he would be. Akane hummed to herself as she read, then let out a wordless cry of disgust.

"What is it?" Ranma was by her side in a heartbeat, scanning the wall and floor for the vermin that had caused her to squeal. She pointed at one of the scribbles instead. "That turd Lanzecki says he found cases of MREs in a civil defense shelter under the Yamotami Combine building. Everyone knows that whole sector's been scavenged out for over a decade, so who does that idiot think he's fooling? When I find him, I'm gonna squeeze the truth out of that skinny neck of his-" She noticed Ranma's flat, disbelieving stare and trailed off. "What? He had to have stolen them from someone else's claim, he doesn't have one of his own..."

"How do we get out of here?" he asked pointedly. Akane shrugged and pointed down one of the tunnels.

"This one lets out under what's left of the highway, it'll get us the closest to Furinkan. Maybe an hour's walk, maybe two. But we're not going to try it tonight."

"Why not?" Ranma was eager for dinner and a hot bath - he couldn't remember the last time he'd felt so grimy. It was a sign of just how soft a year living in a house had made him; just right now, though, he couldn't bring himself to care. Akane shook her head in response, her short hair plastered down like a helmet by sweat and dirt.

"It's too dangerous to go wandering around, after dark. It's why I was going to bunk down at my claim after you distracted me, which-" she jabbed a finger at his chest, her mood shifting mercurial as the subject reminded her. "-you owe me for, you asshole."

"Don't call me an asshole, you hair trigger bitch," Ranma replied automatically, brushing her hand away. It came back, clenched into a fist he barely ducked. "Hey! Watch it, you psychopath!"

"Do you have any idea what your blundering cost me? There was a generator in that grocery, a working fucking power plant! It was worth, literally, its weight in gold and I had to abandon it because you don't know enough not to poke anthills!" She followed him, fists clenched. "You owe me, Ranma-who-thinks-he's-a-Saotome, and I intend to collect."

"Collect how? Your sister- I mean, I don't have any money." Nabiki cleaned out his wallet on a fairly regular basis, and whatever she missed his pops usually snapped up for drinking money. If Shampoo and Ukyou weren't thrilled at the opportunity to feed him their cooking, he'd probably have starved by now. At that thought, his stomach let loose an ear splitting growl that made Akane pale and look down the tunnel, momentarily forgetting her ire.

"That was your stomach?" She looked at him in amazement, then her eyes narrowed. "So now I have to feed you, on top of everything else? By the gods, future boy, you'd better have some talent besides hitting things. I'm going to work the living shit out of you to get my investment back, every goddam penny."

"Hey, you're the future person," Ranma folded his arms across his chest, trying to ignore the continuing rumble of his stomach. "And I don't owe you anythi-"

Akane reached into one of her utility pouches and waggled what looked like a cloth wrapped bar of soap at him. He had a witty comment on the tip of his tongue - he was sure of it - and then, even over the musty stink of the tunnel, there was a delicious smell. It was hard to describe; cooked meat, definitely, but also a fruity sweetness and a hint of oats and nuts. Akane smirked and started to say something, then blinked as the bar suddenly vanished from her hand. "FOOD!" He could feel her gaze upon him, even imagine how it must look - astonishment, disgust, horror - but he couldn't help himself as he devoured the bar, barely chewing in his haste.

"That... that was a three thousand calorie bar," she said numbly. "That was supposed to be a day's rations..."

"Got any more?" Ranma asked hopefully, sucking on a chocolate stain on his thumb. Ugh, that wasn't chocolate.

"I'm adding it to your tab." She pulled another one out and tossed it at him, flinching as it disappeared in midair. She chewed on one of her own as Ranma ate the second, trying to take his time with it. Even so, he finished long before she did, and had to restrain himself from staring longingly as she worked on hers. "Two flash bangs, a tear gas grenade, two days of rations, and that frigging generator. Plus whatever your room and board is while you're paying off your debt - and from the way you eat, that's not going to be chump change."

"You're charging me for the grenades you tried to shoot me with?" Ranma was appalled. "You really are Nabiki's sister, aren't you?"

She scowled. "And that's another thing, I don't want you telling that cock and bull story about being from some mirror reality to my family. We've got enough of our own crap to deal with, without adding your delusions to everything else."

Ranma thought about protesting, but it really was a crazy story - he'd heard crazier, of course, but it still pushed the bounds of belief. He wasn't sure if 'mirror reality' was really the right term - he thought it more likely this was some kind of crazy future, although he couldn't imagine why he would meet the same people he knew in his time. Still, didn't they say history repeated itself? Maybe that was more literal than people realized...

Well, he still hadn't shared the craziest thing with her yet. Not that he particularly wanted to; his greatest weakness, his greatest flaw. His curse. The thing that, for the longest time, he thought made him less of a man; that, although he had come to accept it, however begrudgingly, nobody else seemed to. Akane had even been willing to marry him to get rid of it, until Happosai-

For some reason, thinking of the disgusting little pervert sent a wave of terror down his spine and agony through his skull. He flinched and grabbed at his temples; Akane looked concerned and reached out to him.

"What's wrong? Did you eat too fast?" He brushed aside her hand without thinking about it. With his eyes screwed shut from the pain, he missed the expression on her face - part insulted, part wounded. _This isn't the time or place,_ he thought, trying to push the thoughts away. _I'll deal with this later._ Slowly, the pain receded, but he knew he was going to have to go back and face it at some point. There was _something_ buried there, something important...

"No, it's nothing," he said, opening his eyes. "Look, I don't like sharing this, but... do you have any water? And maybe a kettle, something to heat some up?"

She laughed disbelievingly. "What, you want a cup of tea or something? I can heat up some water, sure, but this isn't the time or place," Ranma blinked as she unknowingly parroted his earlier thoughts, "and we should get moving. You can have a sip off my canteen, if you want. You could probably use it to wash down those pemmican bars, anyway."

"What bars?" He accepted the canteen from her and drank eagerly, careful not to spill any on himself. Better to wait until he had the means to change back before showing the curse off.

He didn't particularly want to demonstrate it - Akane, his Akane back home, had never really accepted him because of the curse, never willing to forgive him for being a boy when she'd thought he was a girl. Someone she could be friends with. _"My name's Akane! You wanna be friends?"_ Hell of a different greeting than this Akane had given him, but still...

"Pemmican. Fruit, meat, nuts, some grains for energy. My sister makes 'em, they can last damn near forever and they're tasty the first couple of days - you can get tired of them pretty fast, though. But there's almost nothing to hunt or gather in the city ruins, so I make sure to carry enough to last me a few days." She paused. "Of course, we'd probably need a wagon to carry enough to last _you_ a few days."

"Har de har, har," Ranma fake-laughed, handing the canteen back to her.

"We should get moving," Akane took a swig from it without wiping off the mouth and tucked it back in her belt. Ranma blinked; wasn't that the same as kissing, what she'd just done? If it was, she certainly found it no big deal. "The longer we sit here, the more likely something will find us."

"I thought you said we couldn't move on until morning, that it was too dangerous to wander around at night," he said, pushing himself past the indirect kiss thing with an effort.

"I did," she said, turning on her heel and walking down the tunnel opposite the direction to home. "But that doesn't mean we can just stand around in the open like this, either. According to the tags, there's an old maintence shop up the tunnel a ways that's been converted to a scavenger safehouse. We can hole up there tonight, though it might cost us if someone's already using it. And you better believe that's going on your tab, too, bucko."

SCENE BREAK SCENE BREAK SCENE BREAK SCENE BREAK —

Fortunately for Ramma's empty pockets, there were no other scavengers holed up in the cubbyhole, nor any of the creatures of the wasteland Akane took great pleasure in describing to him as they walked; Morlocks and vrodyanoi, skin wolves, pit wasps, mourning mists and uglier things yet. It sounded like fantasy; but then, Ranma had encountered some pretty strange creatures in his day, even if most of them had turned out to be more goofy than terrifying. On the flip side, there had been some nasty ones like his evil female twin, or the ghost c-c-c-that thing with the bell that tried to take Shampoo for its bride.

There were quite a few perfectly mundane rats, however; big, hairy brown rats that showed no fear at the light, but stood on their hind legs and sniffed at the air as if trying to decide just how edible the intruders might be. Akane, far from screaming and clinging to him, just sighed and unslung her grenade launcher.

"Are you nuts? You can't fire that thing in here!" Ranma grabbed her arm, and she elbowed him in the side hard enough to knock the breath out of him.

"Cool your jets, grabby. I've got some low dose gas rounds that should shut them down, we'll just have to wait an hour or so for it to dissipate."

"Let me deal with it." It didn't come off as confident or manly as he'd originally planned; it was a little hard to sound more macho than solving one's rodent problem with explosives, after all. He ushered her over to the side, and looked back at the rats; perhaps some of them had retreated, but more had decided to come investigate, drawn perhaps by the foreign smells - especially if some crumbs of Kasumi's pemmican had avoided Ranma's locust like scouring. He cracked his knuckles and stretched his legs slightly.

"Well?" Akane was tossing a rifle grenade up and down, eager to load it up and get to shooting. Ranma bent over, hunching his back slightly, and growled low in his throat. She blinked; that almost sounded like... a cat?

The rats stiffened, some deeply ingrained instinct warning them of danger. By then, of course, it was already too late. Akane had never seen anything like it before, and she knew, somehow, deep in her soul that it was only the beginning of the craziness associating with this strange cosmic castaway would bring to her doorstep. Still, even as insane as she'd thought him before, nothing could have prepared her for the sight of a grown man - or mostly grown, at any rate - acting like a cat.

Acting very _well_ like a cat. The rats fled, and Ranma mrowled and pursued them, scampering faster than they could run and breaking their spines with quick, vicious blows of his paw-hands. He was always one step ahead of them, killing some instantly and batting others back, stymieing their attempts to escape - over and over again, for all the world like a cat playing with its prey. When there was only one left, and Ranma showed no sign of relinquishing his fun, Akane stepped forward to end it - literally, crushing the poor tortured rat under one steel shod boot with a definitive stomp.

"That's enough! Gods and little angels, you don't need to torment the poor thing-" she stopped as Ranma yowled at her, an angry predator deprived of its rightful meal. She cocked the grenade launcher with a loud snap, trying to bluster her way past the sudden tremor of fear that ran up her spine. "Don't even think about it, you weirdo. I will end you."

Ranma straightened suddenly, wincing as he tried to unkink his back from the bizarre position he'd been in. He looked around at the scatter of corpses and grinned. "Alright, it worked!"

"Wait, you turned yourself into a man... cat... thing, and you didn't even know if it would work properly?" It was all she could do not to shoot him right then and there, but decided it wouldn't hurt too much more to hear him out. She could always shoot him after, if the explanation killed too many brain cells.

"Well, it's something I've been practicing for a while..." Ranma told her the rudiments of his Nekoken training as they cleaned out the mess and found some bedrolls that had only been lightly nibbled on. He avoided some of the specifics, like just how bad c-c-c-those milk drinking things scared him, but finished with "...anyway, I wasn't sure if I could just summon it up and let it go like that. As it is, I can't seem to willingly tap into the really high end stuff I do unconsciously, like ki claws, but it's just a matter of time before I get it all under control." He clenched a fist at the sky and struck a pose. "'cause I'm Ranma Saotome, and I'm the best martial artist there is!"

"Yeah, whatever." Akane refused to look impressed. "So at least you've got one talent, I can use you to keep the mice out of Kasumi's pantry. Here's that hot water you wanted."

"Can I borrow your canteen for a minute, too? Thanks." Ranma stared down at the two containers before him, nervousness clutching him closely. What if this Akane reacted as badly - or worse - as the Akane back home did? What if she didn't want anything to do with a gender swapping freak like him? Or, worse, what if she decided he was some kind of wasteland mutant, and tried to kill him? "Akane, have you ever heard of a place called Jusenkyou?"

Akane shook her head. "There's an Amazon tribe not far from Furinkan Town, though, the Joketsuzoku. Is that what you mean?"

Ranma started, barely avoiding spilling water of one flavor or the other on himself. "No way! The Chinese Amazons are here, too?"

"You know them? They come into town every so often to trade, but for the most part they're pretty self sufficient - and they're really nasty warriors. Almost everyone steers clear of them, although Sheriff Kuno has gotten a couple of nice ass whuppings when he tries hassling their women." She snorted. "Hell, that's probably where he got the idea that if he beats me, he can claim me for his wife..."

Ranma closed his eyes. "Man, the more things change..." Akane gave him a suspicious look, but he just shook his head. "Okay, well... Jusenkyou is a cursed training ground my pops and I visited in China."

"This would be the same pops that threw you into a pit of starving cats," Akane remarked dryly.

Ranma shrugged. "Only one I've got. Anyway, the curse is that there's a thousand pools of water, and anyone who falls into one, um... turns into something. Whatever drowned in that pool."

"So, you're not really a boy?" Akane blinked.

"What? No! I'm all male, lady!" Ranma yelped.

"But you just said-"

"Yes, they turn into something else, but only when touched by cold water! Hot water changes me back to where I belong, which is right here!" Ranma cocked a thumb at his chest. Akane gave him a pitying look.

"You know, I thought you were crazy before, but the more you talk..." Before she could finish whatever sarcastic, Nabiki-ish comment she had this time, Ranma lifted the canteen and dumped a good cupful over his head. The look on her face, and the stunned silence that followed, were almost worth the amount of humiliation and misery the curse had brought him. Almost.

Then- "Ranko?"

"What?" Ranma wasn't sure she could be any more surprised if Akane had lifted up that heavy mechanical gauntlet of hers and clocked him upside the head with it. Actually, judging from the last time she'd done just that, that ranked pretty low on the 'surprise' scale right about now.

"You're - you look just like Ranko," Akane said slowly, staring at her as though she'd seen a ghost. "Everything except your eyes." She shook her head. "Ranko's a- well, kind of a rival, but kind of a friend, too. Her family runs a salvage operation just like mine-"

Ranma closed her eyes. "Lemme guess. Saotome Anything-Goes Salvage?"

Akane nodded, and even through closed lids Ranma could still feel her searching gaze running over her face, down that fantastic curvy figure she hated so much, and back up again. _Stare all you like,_ she wanted to say. _I won't melt away. I won't suddenly turn back to what I should be - not unless you splash me again. This is who, what, I am. It's crazy and it's fucked up, but it is what it is._ At the same time, she wasn't sure what to think of finding - herself - duplicated here, in this strange mirror world. Akane the ass-kicker, okay. Akane having the same sisters, no big surprise. "Sheriff" Kuno, well, that was a little odd but she could buy it. But Ranko - a name they'd made up on the spur of the moment to fool her mother - being real? Ranko _instead_ of Ranma?

Akane gasped as the hot water worked its magic, putting things back where they belonged. Ranma shook the worst of the water up, wringing his clothes and hair dry where he could and doing his best to ignore what he couldn't. "It does that every time?"

"Without fail," barring magic soap, splitting curses, and a couple other false hopes he'd rather not think about or bring up at this time. "It's a pretty tenacious curse. I guess, in a way, I was lucky. I mean, at least I'm still human. Most Jusenkyou curses are animals. My pops turns into a panda..." Ranma shrugged, a little ruefully. Ryoga had thrown that into his face, the first time they'd fought after being cursed - it had taken a long, long time for Ranma to realize just how true that was. As much as he'd rather not have to deal with swapping chromosomes every time he got splashed, there _were_ worse things to turn into. Like a c-c-c- like Shampoo's curse.

"That must be horrible," Akane said. He blinked in surprise and looked at her. She didn't have the expression of disgust or anger he would have expected; didn't have that fascination like Ukyou. It wasn't an expression he was used to seeing on anyone's face, really; sympathy. Like she actually cared.

It made him uncomfortable, so he did what he did best; blew it off. "It's no big deal," he said. "I'm still the best martial artist in the world, and this just lets me study it from both sides of the coin. Besides, sometimes it comes in handy to have a ready made disguise just a thermos of water away."

"I can bet," Akane laughed. "Well, we should get some sleep; we're wasting lamp oil sitting around like this, and that stuff doesn't grow on trees." Ranma winced.

"Oh, man, you're not going to charge me for that, too, are you?"

Akane threw a dead rat at him, and blew out the lamp.


End file.
